Your success. Designed by Meta.

Since moving to our uphill paradise, leaving the city hustle behind, I’ve taken time to reflect on what truly matters – like our relationship with success.

Just last Monday, I had a rare relaxed day, spent with my wifefriend. That evening, I asked her to guess my smartphone screen time. “About 90 minutes,” she said. To say I was shocked when the stats showed over 5 hours and 40 pickups, is putting it mildly.

What’s yours?

Ambition and Aggression: "Ambition is often linked to power dynamics. Ambitious individuals strive to climb social or professional ladders, seeking influence and authority. This pursuit involves power struggles, navigating competition and hierarchies."

Chasing Undefined Success: "We often grind through life chasing success we never defined. Damn. This should make us think."

We spend a dreaded amount of time on social media. It’s deeply distorting our habits, perceptions and emotions, no matter how tough we fool we are. And as creators, we submit to the power of these evil red icons even more eagerly. After all — it’s about what we create.

That said, many of us likely live up to expectations set by social pressures and media, internalizing a vision of success that isn’t even ours!

When was the last time you truly stopped to define what success, whether business or personal, means to you? How often do you update that?

Let me guess. Your vision of success is likely older than your car, if ever designed. And you update your MacOS ten times more often than your success definition.

We often grind through life chasing success we never defined.

Damn. This should make us think.

Why do we let others define it? Are we too busy? Or too lazy to define it? What unspoken pressures do we feel when defining success, or avoiding doing it?

What could we learn from looking at our definition of success from past experiences?

When I look at the way I ran my creative businesses, I wish I had this perspective years, ideally decades earlier.

Ambition, power & aggression

Ambition. It's been a huge driver for me, and likely for you, too. Have you stopped to truly reflect on what it is?

In our capitalist society, pursuing bold and ambitious goals is the default. It requires asserting your will, overcoming obstacles, and competing with others. Did you realize that from psychological perspective, this is a form of aggression?

Ambition is often linked to power dynamics. Ambitious individuals strive to climb social or professional ladders, seeking influence and authority. This pursuit involves power struggles, navigating competition and hierarchies. The aggression here is symbolic, manifesting in strategic moves, persistence, and sometimes confrontation.

There are these great studios, and top of the breed award-winning agencies, that we look up to. Without a thought we absorb what we see — their amazing clients, creative prowess, high revenue, and shiny awards as a benchmark for ourselves.

That's what I did.

And when I pushed through the struggles of growing my small-but-mighty studio out of an average metropolitan area, somewhere in central Europe, these are exactly the benchmarks I unwillingly set for myself.

Globalization, and later the age of the Internet, shrunk the scale, bashed the walls and democratized pretty much everything. Or, did it?

You surround yourself with excellence. All of the sudden your benchmark is not another firm in your city or country, but the baddest out there. The Cannes Lions, the Clios, the FWAs… But have the chances, opportunities, resources and economies followed instantly?

Growing a firm to a couple million dollars revenue in Prague, Berlin, Paris, New York, Perth, Shanghai or Bangkok is a vastly different kind of achievement.

Growing as a self-starter and self-learner is different to starting a firm leaving a prosperous agency and taking the address book.

Add your background, family, education…

If your starting point is different, why are you so cruel comparing yourself to the best and baddest?

Ambition. And the loop closes.

Fairness

But are you being really fair to yourself?

I look at it in the rear-view mirror today. Late 2022. We are at a peak. The team is stronger than ever, well greased. Hired these great producers I wanted so badly. The systems were finally there. The reel was damn shiny. We had these top league brands in the portfolio, and our creative was matching the best we could find. The revenue was soaring. And so was the appetite for more. Finally we were in a position to close the gap to the next level.

But we didn't.

And I considered it a damn failure. I suffered.

Looking in the rear-view mirror again, I realize it took me a year to redefine my relationship with success.

I achieved hell lot. I built a decent company, treated my team better than my clients and myself, and we made some impact. Commercially and culturally. There was no 'fat exit' the tech bros keep bragging about on socials. But I made enough good financial decisions, investments and savings to retire at 40. If I wanted.

How does it relate to creativity?

Creativity

Aren't we, as creatives, more fragile, sensitive, and collaborative beings?

If you're a creative running your own business, you're throwing yourself into a world full of tension. On one hand, creativity celebrates a free spirit; on the other, business is an ambition-driven power game. Add to that our borrowed and unwillingly absorbed definitions of success, and things get even trickier.

Does this sound like a recipe for a happy and sustainable life?

Damn, not really.

Your success

Have you ever considered that chasing someone else's definition of success might be the very thing that's holding your studio back from achieving its true potential?

What if we redefined success based on our unique studio values?

And if you made if clear to yourself, what your definition of success look like, both personally and in private life?

Brew your success like your morning coffee – just the way you love it.

Or let the raccoons brew it for you. But not anyone else.

With (tough) love,

Till the next one.